seven--and then we'll be able to get in a couple of rounds before
lunch. A couple more in the afternoon will about see us through. One
doesn't want to over-golf oneself the first day.' He swung the putter
joyfully. 'How had we better play do you think? We might start with you
giving me a half.'
She did not speak. She was very pale. She clutched the arm of her chair
tightly till the knuckles showed white under the skin.
To anybody but Mortimer her nervousness would have been even more
obvious on the following morning, as they reached the first tee. Her
eyes were dull and heavy, and she started when a grasshopper chirruped.
But Mortimer was too occupied with thinking how jolly it was having the
course to themselves to notice anything.
He scooped some sand out of the box, and took a ball out of her bag.
His wedding present to her had been a brand-new golf-bag, six dozen
balls, and a full set of the most expensive clubs, all born in
Scotland.
'Do you like a high tee?' he asked.
'Oh, no,' she replied, coming with a start out of her thoughts.
'Doctors say it's indigestible.'
Mortimer laughed merrily.
'Deuced good!' he chuckled. 'Is that your own or did you read it in a
comic paper? There you are!' He placed the ball on a little hill of
sand, and got up. 'Now let's see some of that championship form of
yours!'
She burst into tears.
'My darling!'
Mortimer ran to her and put his arms round her. She tried weakly to
push him away.
'My angel! What is it?'
She sobbed brokenly. Then, with an effort, she spoke.
'Mortimer, I have deceived you!'
'Deceived me?'
'I have never played golf in my life! I don't even know how to hold the
caddie!'
Mortimer's heart stood still. This sounded like the gibberings of an
unbalanced mind, and no man likes his wife to begin gibbering
immediately after the honeymoon.
'My precious! You are not yourself!'
'I am! That's the whole trouble! I'm myself and not the girl you
thought I was!'
Mortimer stared at her, puzzled. He was thinking that it was a little
difficult and that, to work it out properly, he would need a pencil and
a bit of paper.
'My name is not Mary!'
'But you said it was.'
'I didn't. You asked if you could call me Mary, and I said you might,
because I loved you too much to deny your smallest whim. I was going on
to say that it wasn't my name, but you interrupted me.'
'Not Mary!' The horrid truth was coming home to Mortimer. 'You were not
Mary Somerset?'
